


Life is for Living

by R00bs_Teacup



Series: rewatch bits [1]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s01e01 Friends and Enemies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 23:57:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14068398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/pseuds/R00bs_Teacup
Summary: for canadiangarrison (who rocks), Constance canon :) for week one of the rewatch. After episode one and d'Artagnan's abrupt intrusion into her life, Constance goes about her tasks.





	Life is for Living

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CanadianGarrison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanadianGarrison/gifts).



> WARNINGS: um, nsfw but in a non sexy way, backdrop of general not great humanity, sad ppl, abuse mentioned

Bonacieux returns and eats the food Constance has just got on the table for him and then he leaves again, in a wake of dirt from the street and mess and dishes. Constance sighs and gets up, clearing up after him and washing the floor again, doing his dishes, sponging clean the jacket he left with instruction for it to be ‘sorted’. She sweeps the floor when it’s dry, eats her own food, then… then she sits. Rests her eyes. Wraps her hands around a mug of water. She’s sat like that when the back door clinks open and the musketeer from earlier, d’Artagnan, says something slurred and loud, instantly shushed. He’s steered into the kitchen by one big hand, the tall musketeer half holding him up. Porthos, Constance thinks Athos has called him in the past. Athos himself is held in Porthos’s other arm, one loose hand slung lazily over Porthos’s shoulders the other clinging to Porthos’s belt, knees loose, Porthos holding him up with a strong grip on his hip.

“..an’ then I … the knife!” d’Artagnan says, laughing loudly.

“Oi, shush,” Porthos says. “Respect this house where you’re staying, boy, or I’ll give you a lesson in manners you won’t forget as fast as your first meeting with us.”

“I’m up,” Constance says, getting to her feet (aching) and lighting a candle so they can see her - the fire is mostly out, she hadn’t noticed. Athos mumbles something and Prothos shifts his grip on d’Artagnan as the boy (he isn’t a boy, though, he’s - Constance banishes that line of thought) sways. “You want help?”

“Nah,” Porthos says, grinning. “Used to it, usually it’s Aramis, and he always has his sword out and trying to poke something, quite often me. d’Artagnan is easy in comparison.”

“I am going to be sick,” d’Artagnan announces lifting his chin.

“No you’re not,” Porthos says. “He’s been saying that all night. Right, where am I dumping him?”

Constance shows him across to the door to the small room and Porthos gives d’Artagnan a shove. He lands on the bed. Porthos looks him over, shrugs, and turns away, lifting Athos into his arms. He pauses as she shuts the door, looking into her face with a curiously intent expression.

“What?” Constance says, crossing her arms and staring right back. His lips twitch.

“He’s mentioned you,” Porthos says, nodding at Athos (now snoring against Porthos’s shoulder). “I thought you were taller.”

That is quite clearly not the discrepancy he has actually noticed, but Constance is not sure she wants to know what it is that Athos has said about her that makes her such a surprise to Porthos. She went to the musketeers when Hannah from down the street got beaten by her husband for the hundredth time, her patience running out. She’d stormed about but Athos had been the only one there. He listened, got angry, had words, and somehow Hannah’s husband ended up in the Seine, had to be fished out by the Red Guard, and had given Hannah money and a promise not to bother her again before fleeing Paris. Porthos clears his throat and Constance pushes off the wall and goes to open the back door for him so he can bear his bundle of musketeer out and away. Constance sits again, then gets up and snuffs the candle, gathers her skirts, and a few things, and goes out too. If her husband comes home let him wonder where she’s gone.

She knows the route and though the streets aren’t safe they’re not too bad around here, her husband isn’t rich but he’s not poor either and they live ok. She’s also got a knife in her skirts, of course. Her shoes clatter on the cobbles in her hurry to get out of danger, she passes the small church where she and Bonacieux go and then turns down the alley. She knocks on the back door then lets herself in, right into the kitchen. It’s the kitchen of the Inn known as the Cock though actually called the Cockerel, whose clientele tends to run to rank and file soldiers and towns people. Mary is sat at the table with two of the maids and a stable boy, they’ve just eaten; it’s a good time to stop by. Mary gets up to gather Constance into her arms and pulls out a seat for her. Constance pulls wine out of her skirts and puts it on the table, setting the older maid grinning and reaching for it. Constance draws it back and pours it herself, topping herself and Mary up most and giving the boy and the younger maid just a little.

“I’ve heard a gossip talking about you, Madam Bonacieux,” the younger maid says, far too saucy for being all of twelve years.

“You’d do well to either watch what you listen to or keep your tongue clipped,” Constance says. “Are you finished that?”

The maid looks disappointed but when Mary nods she gets up and clears the table. Mary pointedly looks at the boy, too, who grumbles but bears his mug off to the stables. Constance stops him and hands over three apples she’s brought for the boys and he goes more happily.

“This is Antoinette,” Mary says, nodding to the older maid. “She’s going to stay here a good while, she’s engaged to marry our Jean in the stables.”

“I’m not marrying him in the stables,” Antoinette says.

“The gossip has been around,” Mary says, ignoring that.

“Yeah it will’ve been,” Constance says. “They haven’t got hold of that lot up by the ruins, have they?”

“No,” Mary says, excited, leaning forward.

“Good,” Constance says. “The boy is a musketeer from Gascony, or hopes to be, he came to avenge his father’s death. My husband is renting him a room.”

“What of you?” Mary asks.

“Give over,” Constance says, more bitterly than she means to. She takes a good drink of her wine to buy a little time. “I have a husband, Mary.”

“So do I,” Mary says, and Antoinette gasps, making Mary and Constance laugh.

“I’m not gonna play patroness,” Constance says, “I haven’t the money and don’t have the inclination for a game.”

“The game is fun,” Mary says.

“Just don’t drop your handkerchief or something. Wars have been started for less,” Constance says. “I’ve got some more offcuts from Bonacieux, do you have that dress for me?”

“Yes,” Mary says. “Can you do, like yours? Make it flow more.”

“Yeah,” Constance says. “What’ll you give me this time?”

“Flowers, and a kiss,” Mary says, leaning over to offer the second right now. Constance accepts, Mary’s lips warm and familiar and affectionate. They pull apart laughing and Mary goes to get the dress and the flowers.

The Cock gets nice flowers in and they replace them regularly. Only because the proprietor’s cousin is a flower seller and the proprietor has more money than sense; the crowd out there don’t give a goat’s pizzle for flowers. Constance gets a lot of them, huge bouquets courtesy of Mary in return for dress alterations. She brings Constance a few coins, as well, to cover the cost of the fabric. Constance takes the dress and heads out again, leaving Mary to her work. She visits Hannah next, going to the front this time and waiting for a reply to her knock. Hannah’s sat in the kitchen looking about as bored as Constance is, the daily maid bobs a cursory curtsy then scarpers, ignoring Hannah’s suggestion that she wait for someone to be able to walk her home. She only lives across the street but Hannah’s got the worry, now, and doesn’t throw it easily.

“Mary?” Hannah asks, indicating the dress with little interest. “Is she still paying you in kisses and flowers?”

“Yep,” Constance says, setting the dress aside and putting the flowers on the table, sorting them into two bundles, one for here. Hannah gets a jug and they put the flowers on the table, Hannah tipping her head on one side and gazing at them.

“They’re beautiful.”

“I know,” Constance says. “Have you eaten today?”

“Yeah,” Hannah says, idly, reaching out to touch the leaves. “Drank plenty too, like you said.”

“Good,” Constance says. “I’ll bring you something hot tomorrow, it’s Saturday.”

“Thank you,” Hannah says, eyes filling with tears. She sniffs and shrugs it off so Constance ignores it. She has some candles with her, Hannah always forgets about them these days. She lights them and the fire and does a bit of tidying and cleaning. “I need to do something.”

“I have a bit of sewing, I can pay you a couple of sous for it,” Constance says. She takes it in from lesser noblewomen and people like Hannah, just enough to use Bonacieux’s cuttoffs so the fabric doesn’t go to waste, charging the nobles enough that the women here don’t pay much and Bonacieux still gets his price.

“I hate sewing. Did you know that?” Hannah says, sitting down. “I didn’t realise it, but I hate it, I hate it!”

“I didn’t know, ok, we can find something else,” Constance says, though she doesn’t know what; they’ve tried the laundries, taking in sewing, doing some maid services. Nothing’s kept Hannah for more than a few weeks. “You know, I reckon the musketeers’ garrison wouldn’t say no to a woman who knows a bit of medicine.”

“I don’t know medicine.”

“I do. A little anyway, probably enough,” Constance says.

She promises to teach Hannah, and then she heads out again, back into the street. She has one more call she can make tonight but she goes home first, swapping Mary’s dress for a carefully wound bundle, back into the night and winding her way through the alleys and into darker, grimmer streets, into another alley. The Apothecary’s wife isn’t up waiting for her but she’s in the back putting things to rights, her husband eating in the kitchen. She undoes the bundle and quickly checks her husband’s fixed jerkin and hose, putting them over the back of a chair, holding up the dress to admire it. She exclaims over the soft flowing fabric and the edging Constance has done, the refashioned sleeves to be more up to date. She gives Constance two parcels without much care and Constance goes on her way. She’s more careful, now, trying to keep in the light (there’s not much of it but there’s enough). It’s late too, it must be gone the halfway point of the night and coming back around to morning; Mary will be finishing up in the kitchen, Hannah will be going to her sleepless rest. Constance slips into the barely-entry way and quickly through the dark hall, ignoring the dim figure of a man as he leaves. She sets herself up in a small room as always, lights a candle, lays out her supplies, and waits.

They come, they always do, when a moment is given. Torn skin, festering scratches, sometimes just tears. This is not a good house, this isn’t somewhere where the working girls are cared for. Constance gives what care she can, tends to broken skins and hearts, lets women lift their skirts with shaking hands to show her cuts on thighs, to show her cunts that have been ill-used. Constance has been coming here long enough that it doesn’t shock her, but it does sadden her. There but for Grace of God, she thinks, using her hand carefully, carefully, cleaned and warmed, to press the fat of a thigh away from the chafe and rub and damage, pushing a thumb so gently to part the most intimate folds. She talks as she works, light and making the woman sprawled on the sofa laugh, using her hands when they’re free for affectionate soothing touches, pressing her cheek to the crease of the woman’s knee, the fat there, to see better but also to offer a touch that she hopes is some kind of balm to other, less wanted touches. Constance is careful always to ask, to tell these women what she is doing, why she’s doing it.

“Do we pay you?” the woman asks, adjusting her skirts when Constance is done.

There’s not much Constance can do here, her supplies are limited: to what the apothecary can ‘spare’; to the lie she tells of why she wants the things; to the small amount anyone knows anyway. She works on instinct and experience, applying lessons she’s learnt growing up, from her mother, from women she’s known, from the women here, from trial and error.

“No,” Constance says. “Unless you have a sous to spare, I’ll take nothing.”

“Alright, I can give a little, I’m no charity case,” the woman says.

“It isn’t charity,” Constance says. “But as you wish.”

Constance takes the two sous pressed into her hand willingly, it will help and the woman gets a kind of pride from paying. Her name, she says as she leaves, is Madeleine. Constance takes careful note of the woman’s face and closes her eyes to commit it to memory along with what other characteristics she can recall, making sure she’ll remember Madeleine if there’s a next time. Gillette slips in next, an angry red mark across her cheek and lip. She looks angry too, she flops down on the small settee, a stream of complaints about her face already on the go as she tips her chin up to allow Constance access to examine the mark. It looks like it was made by a whip.

“No,” Gillette says, when Constance asks. “It was a wet cloth if you can believe it, he handled it like a fucking whip though. The shit-remnant was told I don’t do whips and he decided he’d get around it.”

“What happened to him?” Constance asks, amused by the absolute lily-white innocence of the look Gillette gives her. “Does he still have his penis?”

“Yep,” Gillette says. “Even left it attached this time.”

“I can’t do much about this, it’ll come up as a bruise before it heals,” Constance says. “I have a salve that might help.”

“Anything,” Gillette says. “Until then I’ll use it as a selling point I guess.”

“My offer always stands,” Constance says, lightly, as she always does if it comes up.

“Yeah yeah, turn me into an angel you would,” Gillette says.

“At least get you into a better house than this,” Constance mutters, pressing her thumb against Gillette’s cheek to see how the skin reacts, if the blood and humours are still healthy and flowing. She gives Gillette the salve and Gillette pulls her knees up to sit cross-legged.

“Got anything to eat?” she asks.

“No,” Constance says, sitting beside her. “Is there anyone waiting?”

“I came in last,” Gillette says, pulling a flask out of a stocking, an apple out of her bodice, a bit of cheese wrapped in cloth from a fold of her skirt. She offers Constance the apple and the flask, and Constance pulls out her knife to slice the apple which makes Gillette laugh. “Right proper lady you are carrying that carving knife in your knickers.”

“Whatever gave you the impression I’m a lady?” Constance returns, passing over slices of apples. “If I were a lady I’d be asking if you’d read your bible this week.”

“I have as it happens, I been reading that sermon Christine’s been passing about. Not that she can read it. I can though. I like Revelations, all that revenge and fire and coming down avenging. Plenty of people I’d like to see avenged. I’m going up, I am, to heaven. Just let God try and chuck me in hell - I can tell him, I’ve been there already and I’m done with all that.”

“Is that blasphemy?”

“Who cares?”

“Many would,” Constance says, but she finds that she doesn’t. “I don’t see why you wouldn’t go to heaven. God made us with an instinct to live, who dares call that ‘base’ has never had to use it.”

“That’s deep, Madam,” Gillette says, reaching for the flask. Constance passes it back without drinking; she’s drunk before from that flask and doesn’t want to repeat the experience. She keeps a slice of apple though. “Do you need anything, Constance?”

“You mean money. No, my husband just took in a lodger,” Constance says.

“Yeah, that’s your husband though, not you. You could leave if we paid you every time you came.”

“I’m not leaving Bonacieux,” Constance says, eventually. “He’s not bad. He’s just a different choice. Only so many choices for women.”

“You don’t want to end up like us,” Gillette says.

“No, I don’t,” Constance says, truthfully. “I don’t dare judge, but I don’t want this life. I like being a respectable citizen of Paris.”

“Mm, you would,” Gillette says. “I’ve got a couple of sous for you, anyway.”

“Keep them,” Constance says, leaning her head back and waving it away. “A couple of the girls gave me money tonight, keep it back in case it was pride and not an actual having of money that made them give it.”

“Right you are,” Gillette says, sticking her hand into her knickers to return the purse. “Madam Respectability, hey?”

“Something like that,” Constance says. “Where did you learn to read?”

“I taught myself,” Gillette says, proudly. Rightly so; as far as Constance knows there hasn’t been anyone in Gillette’s life to do anything even approaching something that might be called ‘help’.

“I’ll bring you something to read, if you like.”

“More of those fiery sermons, please. I dunno where Christine got that one but I’m sure someone Respectable will.”

“My respectability means I can help,” Constance says.

“I help you, too,” Gillette says, a little genuine anger in her tone.

“Yeah, I guess you do,” Constance says. “Suppose it takes all types to make a world.”

“Surely. Now piss off before you take root there. No respectable woman should be wandering these streets this late.”

Constance pisses off. The trip home always makes her heart pound a bit, it’s so late to be early now. She slips into the house and up the stairs to the room where her husband sleeps. He’s in bed, naked, snoring loudly. Constance moves softly about picking up after him, prepares his clothes for the coming day, and then quietly goes behind the curtain to her own small bed under the window, the sloping roof making it a small crawl space, giving her a little privacy. She hides her supplies and undoes the stays of her dress and corsets and is just down to her under-layers when the curtain is drawn back and Bonacieux stands, unconscious or uncaring of his nakedness. He looks down at her.

“Are you just getting in?” he asks.

“No, I got up for some water, noticed you were back and made things ready for you, for tomorrow,” Constance says, yawning, pretending sleepiness.

“Oh,” Bonacieux says, then stands there, awkward, not knowing how to ask for what his body clearly wants. She’s ignoring his body’s reaction, as she tends to. He nods, clears his throat, shifts his stance, then goes back to bed.

Constance buries her laughter in her pillows, drawing her blankets around her, pressing herself into the thin mattress and thinking about the ‘boy’ downstairs, d’Artagnan. Her cheek against his shoulder as she bound his bruises, his eyes on her as she stood on the bridge; rude country boy indeed, absolutely no control. Not like the other one, Aramis. He hadn’t looked, had very pointedly not looked. She thinks about him, too, and then Porthos, his big shoulders and arms, him bearing his friends to their beds. Or perhaps bearing Athos to his, Porthos’s, bed. Constance returns her thoughts to d’Artagnan and sighs, lets her eyes fall shut, lets herself think about his hand holding her face. She doesn’t push him away, in her mind, and she falls asleep already dreaming.

In the morning she rises early, even after her late night. Bonacieux needs breakfast before he goes to his shop and about his business and d’Artagnan will be needing it, too, before he goes off to do whatever it is he plans to do. Perhaps he still needs to bury his father, he hadn’t said about that. Bonacieux is an early riser. He sits at the table with his food and his wine and he watches his wife. Constance is aware of his eyes on her and stifles her laughter at his ineffectual attempts at engaging her; he says something about money, about his fabrics, asks if she has payment for his offcuts. She gives him the sous and a scribbled ledger she keeps, getting his signature, careful to be business-like. She doesn’t love her husband and he’s never expected that or her, this has always been business for them and she means to keep it that way.

“It’s Saturday,” Bonacieux says, abruptly, getting up and putting his clothing to rights. When he comes over Constance offers her cheek for him to kiss and he looks pleased for that. “Tonight?”

“Yes, I will share your bed tonight, as we have agreed,” Constance says. “I am making hot food for the evening meal so come home in good time. d’Artagnan will eat with you, I will take something to Hannah and eat afterwards.”

“Yes, yes alright,” Bonacieux says, flustered by the mention of d'Artagnan.

“Are you staying for more breakfast?” Constance prompts and he leaves.

She wishes sometimes that she could be kinder to him. He’s a gentle man, really. She tries to persuade herself of that as she does his dishes and cleans up after him, trying, always, to class the stinging in her cheek (remembered, just a memory) as the best of a bad lot. Husbands are often worse, she knows, she’s seen it. d’Artagnan comes and sits for food and he’s just finishing up when Porthos raps on the door before coming in and leaning. Looming. d’Artagnan leaps up, grabbing his jacket.

“Oi,” Porthos says. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Um,” d’Artagnan says, faltering.

“You’ve left your plate and cup there, and a mess on the table,” Porthos says, frowning.

“Oh!” d’Artagnan says, hurrying to tidy up after himself, flushed hot with embarrassment, bringing Constance his dishes. “I’m sorry, Constance, my father taught me better than that. I was merely excited.”

“Don’t you worry,” she says, patting his red cheek. “I’ll take your blushes as payment.”

Porthos laughs, low and rumbling, and collars d’Artagnan. They both turn to give her farewells; d’Artagnan waving and Porthos touching the brim of his hat and giving her a wink. She watches them go, an odd envy curling in her belly, to be going out to… to what? To fight? She hadn’t enjoyed that. To be going out like that, together, touching warmly. Not that either probably. She lets it go and finishes her chores before going to bed for a nap; Bonacieux will not be back for hours yet and he doesn’t need to know her getting extra rest.


End file.
